Knitting from the stash

I learned to knit one afternoon at my cousin's house when I was about 8 years old. For the next year or so I could randomly be found messing with the set of needles and yarn my mom had in her collection of hobbies tried and set aside box. Back then I remember casting on by just putting loops on the needle, made for a really loose edge. In 3rd grade I joined the local 4H group. That first year I made 2 pairs of slippers and a hat, mittens and scarf set. The following year I made 2 sweaters, one for myself and one for my little sister. I was well and truly addicted. This afternoon I will work with the 4H group I currently lead and beg them to concentrate on their projects. Most of them will not have picked up the needles since last week when we met last. I have to remind myself that they are learning and not everyone will be as obsessive as I was back then. But I digress...

Once I started babysitting and earning money I began spending that money on yarn. Through high school and college I haunted places like Michael's and Frank's, both of which had much larger selections of yarn than the local Meijer's or Kmart. Anytime there was something on clearance that I liked I picked it up without having any idea of what I would do with it. This habit along with the leftovers from countless afghans has lead to a fairly large stash of yarn which I am currently attempting to work my way through. Much of the stash is used for the doll clothes in my etsy shop but some of the larger quantities I have put to use for bigger projects. A couple of years ago I made a poncho for myself.

My latest stash project (pictured here as it is blocked) is from the 'Saity' pattern at knitty.com. The blue/gray color is from the stash. It is an acrylic yarn called Angorel which was purchased approximately 20 years ago. The navy blue sides are washable Iceland purchased from Threadbear in Lansing. I am pretty happy with the final results. Just have to find some fun buttons, thinking navy blue, to finish it off and I will have a new coat for the fall.

Friendship Sweaters

Thanks to Maple's order for 2 sweaters for her granddaughter's I finally finished writing the hoodie pattern. I usually have to make 3 or 4 sweaters before I am ready to write the pattern. Yesterday I blocked the sweaters and then wrote up the pattern. I am currently working one more sweater from the pattern instead of from my chicken scratchings to make sure I wrote it correctly. Then it will be off to my etsy shop with the pattern.

Next on the doll pattern agenda may be a dress or sundress. Ideas are still percolating.

I also saw the cutest sweater at the wedding last week that I am thinking about making for myself or my girls. It might make a perfect first pattern to submit to knitty.

Now I am off to work on sewing up the sweater I am making for myself. Pictures to share in a day or so hopefully.

Creative Wrapping 101

I picked up a gift certificate for my parents for their 45th wedding anniversary. We are heading over to my sister's house for a family get together in honor of the folks in about an hour. So...I was looking around trying to come up with a way to wrap the certificate. Certificates are great to give and get but they are kinda boring when it comes to the whole gift opening/surprise thing.
Looked through the stash of gift bags and ran across this short little cream colored guy that reminded me of a vase. Thought of the lilacs (which my dad likes) that are growing in various locations in the yard. Now I just needed a vase that travels.
Cottage cheese container, tissue paper and a ribbon and we had it. Put water in the container, place cover on container to prevent splashing, insert flowers into slits cut into cover, wrap with tissue paper held in place with ribbon. More tissue paper in the bag to hold the container and flower steady, insert card and gift certificate in back behind flowers and presto...a nicely wrapped gift certificate. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

Stop the world and let me off

Some weeks are crazier than others and this one is shaping up to be one of the craziest in recent history. Since I last posted here my days have been insanely full but this is the norm for May (and why it is one of my least favorite months). Why does everyone schedule events in May? Since last Thursday I have attended the school picnic and served sno-cones for 3 hours, gotten my son and daughter to their soccer games, attended a wedding, did the mom day things for both moms, gotten the other daughter home from track practice, met to plan the girl scout Chicago trip, taken minutes at a 2 hour plus parent school council meeting, went to the girl scout bridging ceremony and worked my 40 hour a week job. We still have a track meet at which I have to work concessions, a couple of soccer and track practices and a 45th anniversary party for my parents to get through. Hopefully Sunday stays open because my oldest desperately needs a new pair of skateboard shoes. We are presently using duct tape to keep them together.
Luckily, I have found a small amount of time to knit. While visiting on Mom's day I finished one of the two american girl doll sweaters ordered by Maple. Picture is not the best since I took it last night during the storm (poor lighting) but this one is peach and the blue yarn next to it is in process of becoming the next one. If things go well tonight at the track meet, I should get home by 8pm so that will leave about an hour in my day to get some more knitting in. Hoping to finish and get them blocked and ready to go by the weekend.

I also managed to get the onions in the garden last night before the rain. Dave got some lettuce and radishes in a couple of night ago and the tomato and pepper plants have been purchased and are residing in the garage presently. Sunday may be the day to finish putting in the garden as well as going shoe shopping and lets not forget that the house is a mess, gotta fit in some house cleaning. Time to head to work.

Elbows and Arms

Yesterday started out like a normal Thursday, get up, go to work, find something to do productive. Then the phone rang and off to get x-rays we go. Megan, our 12 year old, had taken a spill at school that her elbow had not appreciated. So I called the doctor for an x-ray appointment and I called Dave who went and got Megan and met me at the doctors and then we filled out forms and waited. There was no swelling or bleeding so we were pretty sure we just had a bad bruise or hyper extension but better safe than sorry given last fall when Molly sent us through the adventure of 2 broken arms.

X-rays appeared fine (although the radiologist still needs to look at them). Megan is still babying the arm so we will see how today goes and then decide what to do about soccer this weekend.


Then, since it was a beautiful day and nothing pressing was happening at work I got a free afternoon once I dropped Megan back at school. Came home, grabbed some lunch, transplanted some rasberries that were coming up in the cardinal bush hedge and then went through the yarn stash looking for possible colors for the hoodies Maple has commissioned.



Pictured above is my first color choice (in pink) and what I am making (in green). I wasn't sure how much yarn it was going to take and the pink was not enough. I have 2 arms, a front and back but no hood. Guess that one will be finished and posted in the etsy store and we go back to the stash for a larger quantity.

A man and his remote

Don't get between a man and his remote! Our youngest showed his temper earlier today by throwing the remote. We recently applied parental limits on the cable so that the kids would have to go outside or do something else besides watch cartoons. Apparently, Travis was upset when his time was up so he threw the remote and busted it. Like all current technology, using the cable without a remote is not an easy thing. Well, Dad got home, discovered the broken remote and went off the deep end (hmmm wonder where Travis gets his temper from?).

Anyways, Travis (and the other kids by default) are now all banned from the cable. Travis is also banned from the computer. Dave's blood pressure should go down in about an hour and I have disappeared to the computer since conflict and me have never gotten along.

I left Dave with the suggestion that we bring the other cable box from the basement up to the living room TV (has a working remote but of course they are not interchangeable remotes) and we move the living room cable box to the bedroom. This provides me with a few more options of things to watch when the neighbors are over for sports and I disappear with my knitting into the bedroom. Getting up to change the channel doesn't bother me. I remember when TV used to be black and white and someone had to hold the antenna to get the picture to come in correctly.

Kids are now off to bed so it is probably save to go pick up my knitting and relax. I am about to start the collar...the end is near.

Shawl Knitting Begins

I made the trip north today after work to join some lovely ladies in an evening of knitting. These ladies have been meeting every Monday night since last fall, conquering a new sock pattern each month. I haven't been able to join them up until now since my Mondays have been committed to parent school council meetings or the 4H knitting group. But today the stars aligned (in other words, no 4H because no school, records day and no meeting) so my evening was free and, the best part, they have decided to do shawls for the summer and I have had pattern (Point D'Esprit Shawl from Aurora Yarns) and yarn (100% Alpaca from Drops) sitting here for months waiting for me to start. A sign from the heavens... me thinks.

So off I traipsed to Sip N Knit in Ithaca for knitting and socializing. If you are ever in the area I recommend a stop as it is a lovely yarn shop and they serve very tasty sandwiches, soup and slushies. (They also have coffees but I don't have the taste buds for that particular beverage, everyone else seems to enjoy it though.) Did a little socializing, a little knitting (progress pictured along with pattern picture of what it will be when done) and generally relaxed for a couple of hours. Just the way every Monday should end.

Haim on Fire

It took me all day but I finished my entry for the etsy Haim on Fire contest. Not thrilled with the final product but my girls think it is cool. Just the fact that I knit something that looked completely different from one side to the other has them completely baffled.

For me, I need lots more practice on both double knitting and intarsia before I will be happy with the final results but I will say that creating it was fun and it will hopefully increase the traffic to my etsy shop.

Now, back to the spring jacket I am making for myself from my stash. Will hopefully have pictures of that to share by the end of the week.

A New Hobby

Welcome to my new hobby, blogging. Time I started figuring out what this blogging is all about. If nothing else, it will give me something to look back on to figure out what I did last week since the memory isn't what it used to be.

Eventually, once I figure this all out, I will be sharing pictures of what is currently on my needles, recent patterns created for my daughters collection of dolls, how my garden grows and the progress of my current adventure, cotton growing.

Best day of this week was Wednesday. I took a vacation day and treated myself to a Lucy Neatby class. It was such fun and the day flew by. Lucy shared lots of tips and tricks for double knitting. This is a technique I have been playing with recently when I made a hot pad/trivet for my sister in law. She wanted a hot pad big enough to set a cake pan on and pampered chef no longer carries theirs. So last time I was in the yarn shop I picked up some wool and away we went. Some basic double knitting and a little bit of felting and we had a hot pad made to order. Mailed it off to her a couple of days ago. Still waiting to hear from her but hopefully she will like it.